Gravitational fields
Representing gravitational fields & Newton’s law of
gravitation
- Gravity is attractive & affects anything with mass
- Representing fields
Line separation: strength
Arrow: force direction
- Earth
Relative to an object beyond the Earth’s surface, Earth acts as a point mass
o Earth’s gravitational field seems to act at the Earth’s center of mass –
the point at which all of an object’s mass is considered to be
concentrated in
At a smaller scale, the GF is virtually uniform despite the field being radial
- Newton’s law of gravitation
M and m attract each other with force F
o The point masses, despite having different mass, exert the same force
on each other in opposite directions, according to Newton’s 3 rd
Point
o The observed difference comes from the object with lower mass having
higher acceleration & thus looks like is getting attracted more
Newton’s law of gravitation: any 2 point masses attract each other
with a force that’s directly proportional to the product of their masses &
inversely proportional to the square of their separation
o Representing as an equation requires a constant G
F = gravitational force
G = universal gravitational constant = 6.67 x 10 -11 Nm2kg-2
Note: r = separation, NOT RADIUS
Inverse square law & separation
o As seen above, F follows an inverse square law with separation r
o Field lines can be seen spreading over 4x the surface area with 2x
separation
rF
2r ¼F
Gravitational field strength – g
- Gravitational field strength: the gravitational force exerted per unit
mass on an object at that point
For small objects on Earth: g = 9.81 1kg object experiences 9.8N of
gravitational force
- We can get another equation from the gravitational force equation:
M = mass; r = distance from mass
g can also be seen to follow an inverse square law with distance
Energy in gravitational fields & gravitational
potential
- Gravitational potential (at a point): work done per unit mass in
bringing a point mass from infinity
For an object at a distance r from mass M:
Note the minus sign
o GP increases as distance increases infinity = maximum GPE
o Infinity is taken at 0 as a convention + the above all positions other
than infinity (closer to the object) are negative (smaller than 0)
GPE increases (becomes less negative) with distance
o Gravity is an attractive force
- Gravitational potential difference
Usually it is more useful to consider change in GPE
o E.g. How much energy is needed to lift a satellite from a planet surface
into orbit
Combined equation (2 operations of GPE)
Orbits
- For an orbiting object, gravity acts as a centripetal force
- Calculating the speed required for an object to stay in
orbit
Smaller distance higher speed required
Bigger distance lower speed required
- Orbital period: time taken for an object to complete 1 orbit
Note: T2 ∝ r3
- Typical satellite orbits
- Geostationary orbits: a satellite orbit such that the satellite remains
directly above the same point of the Earth at all times
Geostationary orbits must be equatorial / Geostationary satellites must stay
above the equator
- Calculations of geostationary satellites
For the satellite to be geostationary, 1 orbital period = 24 hours
Using the previous formula:
Conditions of geostationary orbit:
At a distance of 42300km to the Earth center
Located directly above the equator
Thus many satellites have the same orbit, parked in different locations
around
